Loads of screws but.....

[DerbyBorn]

I never seem to have the right ones when I need one that has a good shoulder - used when fitting something to the wall that has key-hole slots. A countersunk head just doesn't work properly.

Also - the modern screws are not as good as the old ones when using a wall plug as they tend to cut a thread into the plug rather than wedge themselves in by virtue of their tapered thread root and blunt threads.

Similar theme with wall plugs for plasterboard walls. If attaching something that needs a screw to be fitted so that something can keyhole onto it then the screw doesn't get fully tightened so the plug doesn't get forced open to grip the inside of the plasterboard.

(I know - I need to stock up!)

[Dave Liquorice]

Round head is what you need.

Small hollow wall anchor and setting tool.

Longer screw so the plug is fully expanded before the screw is fully home.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Easiest to use round head self tappers for this. Or at least, they tend to be easier to buy than 'proper' wood screws for this job, but more expensive.

[DerbyBorn]

.

Just what I ended up finding when I fixed a telephone base unit to my wall.

[John Rumm]

Look at "pan head" screws for that application.

I am not sure that is true... I find no difficulty getting a very good fixing with modern screws and plugs. You need to match the screw to the plug, and for masonry stick to the heavier gages such as 10s and 12g rather than 8 or less (unless we are talking short small screws.

(you can still buy the traditional wood screws if you want)

Look at plasterboard readidrive inserts for that. They screw in like a large deep thread screw, then the screw drives into them. The screw does not need to be set at any particular position because its not the screw that achieves the tight fit.

[NT]

hole size is also a bit critical. I dont know what type of drill the OP is using, but if its an old style masonry bit, the hole is often bigger than the drill bit.

Another mistake folk sometimes make is to use too short a screw into masonry. To get any strength its necessary to go reasonably deep. 3" screws are good when max strength is needed, 2.5" for general purpose, and 2" for light fixings. Trying to get good purchase on a 1"er is futile, you'll only attach it to the weak plaster.

NT

There are several good PB fittings, try them all, then you know their strengths and limitations. Hammer-in metal plugs, redidrive, toggle, expanding plastic plugs for light fittings. But none have anything like the strength of a masonry fixing, or ever will. No matter what you do you're only fixing to at best half an inch of plaster and paper.

NT

[John Rumm]

On that subject, another tip worth remembering is that you can put the screw in the plug and tap it with a hammer to seat the plug deeper in the wall, rather than leave half of it in the plaster.

To give some measure of how firm a fixing you can get, I used some 2.5" x 12 screws into "brown" plugs in a 7mm hole for hanging a big rad yesterday. On one hole I did not actually drill it deep enough, so the screw bottomed out with the head a few mm short of home. My 18V impact driver (with a fixing and bit snapping maximum of 147Nm torque) could not twist the screw, to either strip the thread, or wind the plug out - it just stopped dead and was not going to budge. (reversed the screw out

- drilled the hole deeper through the existing plug (hence removing it as plastic chips!), re-plugged and tried again)

[NT]

On weak walls or where max strength is needed, I generally use 3" holes and insert 2 plugs, one after the other. The 2nd one is cut off flush once hammered in.

If a hole is crumbling, blow out loose muck, brush inside with pva, and fill with a filler. Once its set hard after a couple of days you should get a decent fixing, even on junk masonry

NT

[Huge]

And then they pull out of the plasterboard & whatever you've put up falls off the wall.

[NT]

This lot oughta be shovelled into a wiki article

NT

[The Medway Handyman]

Can I speak up for the absolutely brilliant Rawlplug "Uno" plugs. Work in brick, block, plasterboard, whatever.

[John Rumm]

I had some hotmelt wallplug sticks once... when you get a lousy hole, pump the stick in with a glue gun, allow to cool and then drive a screw straight into the set "plug". Worked quite well in fact.

[John Rumm]

Depends on your load type. Plaster board is quite good on shear loads, but pretty poor on any load that tends to pull on the fixing. The hollow wall anchor being the best of a bad lot for that case.

[SteveW]

I had numerous problems with curtain poles that kept coming down (partly crumbly walls and partly kids pulling hard on the curtains. None of the fixings I tried would get a grip and even the two part epoxy putty type ones just pulled lumps out. My solution was to use 5" screws, which with a bit of effort I managed to use as self-tappers into the Catnics! The heads had to be ground down a bit and the keyholes opened up a bit to fit, but neither of those poles is going anywhere!

SteveW

[Jim K]

FSVO "filler"

Jim K

[Huge]

Troo. I sat under a couple of tonnes of manuals on Spur shelves attached to a p'board wall for some years.

And yet my towel rail fell off the bathroom wall with monotonous regularity, until I screwed a board to the studs and screwed it to that.

[The Medway Handyman]

The bulk of my 'fixing things to walls' activities - and I fix sh*t loads of things to walls in a week - involves the use of two different screws & one wall plug.

4 x 30 countersunk Quicksilver 4 x 40 round head Quicksilver Rawlplug 'Uno' red plugs.

[John Rumm]

Grey or orange?